The state of Android updates: Who’s fast, who’s slow, and why

Naming and shaming (sometimes praising) the update efforts of OEMs and carriers.

The wireless carriers

These charts show the average time flagship phones took to get KitKat on each carrier.

These charts show the average time flagship phones took to get KitKat on each carrier.

Motorola's update speeds are so abnormal that we figured a chart without the Moto X would be valuable. This is how long a device typically takes to update on each carrier.

There are two different charts for the carriers: with and without the Moto X. If you want to know what the average update time is for a locked phone, Motorola's update speed seriously skews the numbers for the rest of the industry. Without the Moto X, Verizon's average is 5.3 months—Google has developed entirely new Android updates in that amount of time. In every gallery, the charts all use the same x scale, so you can easily compare update times across charts.

As the chart shows, if you care about update times, you should definitely buy an unlocked device. The downside is paying more up front, but the upside is huge. You get faster updates and—if you pick the right carrier—a lower monthly bill.

But if you just have to deal with one of the big carriers, we've got charts for that, too. These numbers average the update times for our 2013 flagships—the LG G2, HTC One M7, Moto X, Galaxy Note 3, and Galaxy S4—on each carrier. Each phone is available on all four carriers, and we included the unlocked versions, too, so the statistics worked out. Only the Nexus 4 was excluded, because it's not on every carrier (T-Mobile was the only carrier to sell it).

These charts are meant to show which carriers delay updates the most, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, it's Verizon. The company makes sure to take an especially long time to approve updates for its most popular phones, like the Galaxy S4 and Note 3, which both took around six months.

Verizon has a long, storied history of doing everything it can to cripple the phones that run on its network. Back in 2004 when flip phones were first getting Bluetooth, Verizon frequently disabled critical Bluetooth profiles of its devices to stop users from freely transferring files and contact information. This forced users to pay for additional products like Verizon's "PIX Place" image service and "Get-it-now" ringtone store; otherwise users could shell out for a proprietary $40 USB cable.

In 2007, when phones were getting GPS, Verizon disabled that, too, until it figured out how to charge $10-per-month for it. When Wi-Fi came around, Verizon would artificially limit it or demand that OEMs build Verizon-specific versions without Wi-Fi in order to force users to get a data plan. In 2011, it blocked Google Wallet to give a leg up to its competing service called "ISIS," which wouldn't launch nationwide until 2013. Today Verizon's tradition of hostility toward its customers continues with slow Android updates, which presumably it thinks will encourage users to upgrade sooner. Luckily for the company, wireless customers do not typically vote with their wallets, and users have rewarded Verizon's behavior by making it one of the nation's largest carriers.

AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile are all about the same, which is surprising given T-Mobile's seemingly friendly attitude toward Google and the Nexus devices. T-Mobile was the launch partner for the G1, and the company has sold nearly every Nexus device in its stores. That openness hasn't translated to quick update times, though.

OEMs versus carriers

Average update times for each device across all four US carriers. How well can an OEM navigate the carrier update process?

Average update times for each device across all four US carriers. How well can an OEM navigate the carrier update process?

If it weren't for the Sprint version nearly taking a month and a half, Motorola would have a 0.65-month average.

Sprint was the complete opposite for HTC. It was the only carrier that got KitKat during HTC's 90-day promise.

Samsung has an across-the-board update time of about four months, except on Verizon, which took almost six.

The unlocked version of the G2 was actually third! LG doesn't seem to have a focus on delivering quick updates to its direct customers.

The Note 3 was again about a four-month delay across Sprint, T-Mobile, with AT&T taking a little longer. Verizon was a whopping six-and-a-half months.

This chart shows update times for locked devices averaged across all four big US carriers. Every phone on this list ended up on all four carriers, so we again have nice, tidy statistics.

The award for "Best at navigating carrier red tape" goes to... Motorola! In 2013, the company demonstrated a wizard-like ability to get code into the hands of users without letting carrier meddling get in the way. Motorola even managed to sneak KitKat through Verizon's notoriously slow update process in a blistering 19 days, shaving a significant amount of time off Verizon's usual five-month update delay.

A lot of people credit Motorola's update success to Google, but consider that even Google's Galaxy Nexus took three months to get Android 4.3 on Sprint. The Verizon version never got 4.3. The Google-owned Motorola seems to be the perfect combination of Google's Android know-how and Motorola's 35-year history of dealing with cellular carriers.

HTC averaged about 3.5 months for the carrier versions, a little longer than the three-month period it was aiming for, but that's still decent compared to Samsung and LG's 4.6-month average.

Non-Flagships

The Droid line is built for Verizon by Motorola, which explains the non-terrible update speed.

The Droid line is built for Verizon by Motorola, which explains the non-terrible update speed.

The bigger and smaller version of the One took about five months to see KitKat.

LG is still super slow, coming in at around six months.

Samsung is even worse, with a seven-month wait for the S4-Mini line—except for the AT&T version, which still isn't out.

If you're looking for a device that isn't a flagship, that usually means a much longer wait for KitKat. Motorola is again the leader, and even the company's non-flagship phones get updated before anyone else. The company's ~20 day Moto X update speed has more than tripled for their non-flagships, though that still comes in at about two-and-a-half months. Most of Motorola's non-flagships are Verizon's DROID line, which—yes—still exists. The excellent Moto G is also included in this group.

HTC didn't have much in the way of non-flagships for the 2013 era—almost all of its focus was on the HTC One M7. Still, the company did release bigger and smaller versions of the One—the Max and Mini—on a handful of carriers. The updates there all hovered around five months.

LG was slower, averaging around six months for an update for the curved and flat versions of its phablet—the LG G Flex and Optimus G Pro, respectively. The G Flex gets bonus fail points for being released in 2014—that's after KitKat, but not launching with KitKat.

Samsung, the company with the most phone variations, took around seven months. Some Samsung phones, like the AT&T version of the S4 Mini, don't even have the KitKat update yet, which gives the company a literal black mark in our chart. If the update is ever released, it would put the AT&T version of Samsung's S4 Mini at over nine months. Buying a non-flagship phone means a long wait for an update.

Ron Amadeo / Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work.